On Tuesday, January 20th, the House Health and Human Services legislative committee will take up four bills. All of these bills are at the request of various state agencies. None of these bills are on my watch list, but I figured I would at least read each of them once and see if there is anything noteworthy about them.

This bill is at the request of the SD Board of Dentistry. This bill adds a lot of definitions, presumably to clarify current code used to regulate the dental field (§ 36-6A). Some other notable changes include:

Ensuring the board officers are elected annually. Previously it appears there was no requirement as to how often officers are voted on.

The board president cannot serve more than three one-year consecutive terms.

The board secretary will no longer be paid a salary, and instead will receive a stipend.

Most of the rest of this bill (which is very long) appears to be clarifying and rewording current code. From reading through this bill I didn’t see any red flags… but honestly dental regulation is far from being an interest of mine…..

This bill is at the request of the SD Department of Health. Governor Daugaard mentioned this legislation briefly in his State of the State address. I believe this bill is intended to allow the Dept of Health to be more efficient and timely in being able to deal with outbreaks. HB 1058 is either adding to or amending the codified law on Contagious Disease Control (§ 34-22). Here are some notables in this bill:

This bill starts out by defining “Carrier” and “Communicable disease”. These terms had not been defined before.

Old code specific to tuberculosis has been removed.

Language has been added to include the “monitoring, quarantine, and isolation of any patient or carrier” falls within the realm of the Department.

The language making it a Class II misdemeanor to purposely expose the public to a communicable disease in a public place has been reworded and clarified. I found it is interesting this was a Class II misdemeanor.

A new section will be added to 34-22 allowing the Dept of Health to commence action through circuit court for anyone suspected of having any disease under the authority of Chapter 34-22. This is one little provision I like. It ensures the Dept of health does not try to take action on its own. Rather the dept has to work through the court, where there is theoretically some check/balance for civil liberties.

Overall I don’t see anything wrong with this bill. The main part of this bill appears to try updating outdated language. It also makes Chapter 34-22 much less specific to tuberculosis, and more aimed at any communicable disease that is a public health. The addition of having to use the circuit court for action at least creates a check and balance in case the Dept of Health tries to overstep its authority.

This bill is at the request of the SD Department of Health. This bill makes one little change to §34-22-12.5. This part of the code allows patients immunization records to be shared by certain entities, unless the patient specifically has prohibited refused to allow it to be shared. What this bill does is remove the old language referring to immunizations received prior to July 1, 1996, and changes the “may” to a “shall”. Basically that means these organizations have to share immunization data if asked to do so. The organizations listed are: “health care providers, health care facilities, federal or state health agencies, child welfare agencies, schools, or family day care facilities”. The current law also makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor if these organizations fail to protect this data (this bill keeps that intact). I don’t see a reason at this time this bill won’t pass. I would be interested to hear if there has been a problem with the “may” in the current code preventing organizations from sharing immunization records.

This bill is at the request of the SD Bureau of Human Resources. This bill seems to remove a lot of sections and references in codified law to the SD Risk Pool. Since ACA has basically made this state program obsolete, this bill continues the process of eliminating the SD Risk Pool. I noticed on the SD Risk Pool website that any current enrollees can keep this particular insurance until June 30, 2015. After that time it would appear this program will be gone completely. Some of the code being repealed is not being done until Jan 1, 2017; presumably for certain administrative tasks within the program. I didn’t dig too deep into what all is repealed in this law, I don’t have a lot of interest in a program that is basically gone anyhow.